10 HARDEST Video Games Ever

10 Hardest video games ever. Have you ever came across a game that has had you frustrated because its too bloody hard well we have put 10 of the most insanely hard games ever so stay well clear from them.

Ninja Gaiden Black

To be fair you can pretty much put any Ninja Gaiden on this list and the reason for it would be justified, However Ninja Gaiden Black is the perfect choice for this list as it takes what made the original NES game hard and cranks it up to 11.

This time around, you were playing in a 3D playing field much like Devil May Cry but also kept the difficulty and challenge the original NES trilogy had to offer.

That means the action was fast paced, enemies were quick, fast and tough and most of all you are required to learn the controls to a T as you will be required to use certain abilities throughout the game.

This isn’t a game where you can just ignore the block button. This game is the literal definition of “Get Good or get out”.

Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening PS2

So coming off of the lukewarm reception that Devil May Cry 2 received, Capcom decided to go back to Dante’s roots for the third game in the series, With the story showing how the demon hunter became such a badass that he is today.

…...Oh Wait Nevermind.

However with this they decided to rack up the difficulty. What was originally the hard mode in japan, it was instead made the normal mode to western audiences making everyone cry at later levels in the game due to how difficult they were.

It was so difficult in fact that Capcom had to release a special edition that balanced the difficulty. Now the game is pretty much perfect.

Stuntman PS2

So just to add a bit of variety to the list, we decided to add Stuntman on PS2. This game is a whole lot of fun. The issue here however is that this game is a memory game.

You have to be absolutely perfect when playing through a level. The requirements to complete a level include you to drive through a stage and complete obstacles within a time limit.

This time limit cuts everything you do close meaning you must be perfect which is no easy task as these obstacles can range from things like stunt jumping through the open doors of a train,

dodging traffic in a tight tunnel with large vehicles blocking and obscuring your path and even smash your way through barns and kiosk stands just to make the time limit. This game is incredibly fun but difficult at the very same time.

Castlevania III Dracula’s Curse NES

It should be said that none of the original NES Castlevania titles are easy.

What with the original game is incredibly difficult with that final boss and Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest is difficult due to how criptic it is as well as how tedious the day to night transition can be but it must be said that Castlevania III's brutality is worth a special mention because much of it was manufactured for the US version of the game.

Enemies are much more challenging in this game because they hit much harder and the U.S version saw Ghost character Grant have his throwing dagger nerfed to be a lot weaker than the japanese counterpart in which his attack was much more effective.

Worst of all, if you die in your fight against one of Dracula's three forms, You will have to go through the entire final stage all over again. Now surely the japanese version has to be the same with this right? WRONG! If you die in the japanese version, You will graciously respawn at the bottom of the stairs right outside the boss room. Finding this out year later must have sent 80’s kids into fits of rage, that’s for sure.

Contra NES

Developed by Konami, Contra was considered by many to be one of the most difficult games on the Nintendo Entertainment System next to Ninja Gaiden, Ghosts n’ Goblins and the Castlevania trilogy (which was also developed by Konami).

This game was so difficult that it ended up spawning the original incarnation of the Konami, The most famous cheat code of all time. The code gave the player 30 lives as opposed to the original 3 lives the game gives you.

The game itself arms the player with an array of weapons and are given the task to take on an alien force across several missions, including side scrolling, platform shooting sections and psuedo-3D shooting galleries.

Waves of enemies constantly assaulted players, as well as some fearsome bosses. Through all of this, you had three lives with one-hit kills to beat the game.

You can pretty much see why the Konami code was invented now can’t you?

Battletoads

All we need to say is this. Turbo - Freaking - Tunnels! So Battletoads is difficult for two different reasons.

The first one being the Turbo Tunnel. This part of the game is just brutal as the player must drive a jet ski through a tunnel at a ridiculous speed whilst dodging oncoming obstacles and hitting jumps just right.

Now you’d think by adding a second player, this may increase your chances at beating this stage right? WRONG! Having a second player makes the whole game, not just the turbo tunnel section but the whole game difficult for two reasons. First reason being that you can hit your partner,

making it much more risky during beat em up sections and the fact that when a player’s 3 lives are up the game is over. It doesn’t matter if you still have 3 lives, if your partner dies, it’s game over for the both of you. You’ll probably end up in a brawl with them by the time you complete the game.

Silver Surfer NES

This game is just brutally unfair! Silver Surfer on the NES is one of those games people love to hate, and it's often used as an example of bad game design.

Once again it is another game that has tight controls and graphically looks nice, but it’s the enemies that ruin it. With the vertical sections being particularly tricky due to the size of the Surfer’s board because in this game it’s a one hit,

game over situation meaning either the player must be hit by an enemy for the game to be over or the player must hit a part of the level’s design for the game to be over. Trust us it is terrible!

That being said, even with this kind of challenge, the game is beatable, it just requires some extreme skill to better the various levels and take down the bosses, something only the best players of the game have managed to do.

God Hand

God Hand’s is actually a tragic story. This game is actually pretty damn cool as it mixes wild west themes with hand to hand martial arts combat.

The game play itself was pretty cool and the story was crazy but the type of crazy that grabs the player’s attention. Unfortunately it was a commercial failure,

and that means many of the best ideas are yet to be stolen, one being the on-screen difficulty meter that responds to a player’s skill. Now you’re probably asking how is this difficult?

well There are four gradations, from level one to level DIE and if you couldn’t tell, Level DIE is obviously the hardest of them all. The way this system works is if you’re playing the game badly or are just struggling to get a grasp of the controls and combat, you will remain on level one.

As you progress and get better, The difficulty will gradually get turned up and up until the difficulty either wrecks you or you get good enough to deal with the game’s difficult enemies. Few games make the demands that God Hand does, and none tie difficulty and performance together with such elegance.

Ghosts N’ Goblins NES

Oh boy now if you want difficulty, look no further! Now at first glance you may think “Aw what a cute little name and cartoony art design! I’ll just buy this for little jimmy to enjoy”.

Well Little Jimmy probably didn’t enjoy it because this game was ridiculously difficult! This platformer - sends you on a Knight's quest to rescue a princess. Sounds like a simple premise right?

Well As you move through various levels, the game's enemies, presumably programmed by the Devil himself, will swoop in at impossible angles to damage you. Two hits, and it's back to the start. The game also decided to embrace real-world physics, which meant that jumping became "landing and being killed."

So it’s only 2 hits and you go back to square 1, You can’t jump for heights or else you’ll die. What else can the game throw at you? Oh yeah how about going through the game twice in order to get the true ending! Yeah as if it apparently wasn't hard enough, completing the game will prompt it to restart at a harder difficulty before you can truly complete it.

Why? Because everything you just did was an "illusion.” Yeah sure whatever. 6 levels would have been just fine without forcing us to replay them!

Demon's Souls

Probably the one thing people think about these days when it comes to difficult video games is probably one of the instalments of the Souls franchise that belongs to From Software.

Now we’ll only be choosing one game because if we choose multiple from this series, it would take up near enough half the list so we decided to chose the very first game in the series, Demon's Souls. Now technically it is it’s own IP but you can easily count it as a part of the dark souls series for the simple reason that they both aesthetically look similar,

They play the same and they’re all incredibly difficult! And hey the developers are actually really proud of this. Demon's Souls found itself somewhat praised for its difficulty level, presumably because it proposed a genuine challenge to avid gamers who've have been playing games that are more story focused rather than focusing on how challenging the gameplay was for the last decade.

Demon's Souls just took no prisoners and shocked everyone as a result. Now what makes it so difficult? Well the controls itself are pretty much perfect. It’s literally how the game treats the player as the game gives you very limited health items, Insane boss fights and very few checkpoints.

Sure as a player you’ll find yourself getting more and more annoyed as you keep playing the game and keep dying but by the time you’ve completed it, you end up feeling like you’ve accomplished something incredible.